


every little place

by MercuryPoisoning



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcoholic Yang Xiao Long, Alternate Universe - Real World, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bumbleby - Freeform, F/F, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I regret everything, Past Blake Belladonna/Adam Taurus, Renora if you squint and tilt your head to the left, Sexual Content, Sun and Neptune are just gay, Traumatized Blake Belladonna, Yang gets a redemption arc, they're all adults
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:47:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28377948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryPoisoning/pseuds/MercuryPoisoning
Summary: Blake is running from a lot of things, and Yang embodies too many of them. But time still has the power to make everything new.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long, Neptune Vasilias/Sun Wukong
Comments: 2
Kudos: 52





	1. bar

**Author's Note:**

> I spent two days on this garbage Bumbleby real-world AU because the queerbaiting in volume 8 could NOT be worse at this point. I hope all you fuckers enjoy. There are no spoilers ahead, just lots of gay pain. Let me know how it makes you feel. Or if it even makes you feel at all. >:)

Everything starts in a bar.

Blake has a soda in one hand and a pen in the other. _Click, click, click_ it goes beneath her nervous thumb. _Click, click._ She scans the crowd for Sun, but he’s lost beneath the bobbing mass of bodies. And when at last she spies a golden head, it becomes apparent very quickly that it’s not the one she’s looking for.

“Hey there, beautiful,” says the golden head, barely audible over the blare of electronic sound. Blake makes eye contact with the most startling lavender eyes she’s ever seen. And the gold, it just keeps going on, and on, and on, and on.

“Can I buy you a drink?” the golden head yells. She’s holding a drink of her own, Blake notes, but it’s nearly empty, and from the drift of those lavender eyes it’s clear that this is not the first empty glass of the night.

“I don’t drink,” Blake yells back. “Sorry.”

“Oh. Well, do you smile?”

Taken aback, Blake’s face rearranges itself into a scowl when she shouts, “of course I do,” and the golden head laughs.

“I’m Yang,” she says, thrusting out an unsteady hand. “Do you come here often?”

But Blake can only nod mutely, because underneath Yang’s fingerless leather gloves, her hand is cold and metallic. She slips back onto the dance floor with a little wave. A brief and glimmering cloud. Blake’s hand turns to ice. Her stomach to butterflies. Her scowl to a - well, a something.

* * *

The work week drags along, and Blake drifts through it. She catches a flash of gold in her periphery when she gets into the elevator. Her filing cabinet feels weirdly familiar beneath her hands. Ren’s lavender mug distracts her when she goes over to study with him. Her own thesis starts to bore her to death. She waits for the weekend.

On Friday night, Sun is unresponsive. Three missed calls and a few angry texts later, Blake is fed up. She pulls on a jacket and her tallest boots and heads to Beacon Nightclub alone.

It’s still early - only about 10pm - and part of Blake is hoping, very quietly, that she’ll catch Yang before she gets too drunk. She won’t approach her. She’ll wait and see if Yang recognizes her, if she remembers last Saturday night despite the alcohol. If she still wants to see Blake smile, or if that was just routine.

And Blake doesn’t know why she’s waiting for this, but god damn it, it has to be done.

She’s two sodas in and scanning the bar for the fiftieth time when in walks Yang, as golden as she was last weekend. There are two girls with her, one with cropped pink hair and a loud laugh and the other with an icy stare and a long white braid. They flank Yang like bodyguards. Blake swivels back to the bar, disheartened.

Four sodas in and Blake needs to pee badly, so she hops off her barstool and orients herself in the direction of the washrooms. Halfway there, she is intercepted.

“Hi again,” says Yang.

“Hey,” Blake responds, feeling struck. “I, uh, just need to use the washroom.”

Yang laughs, loud and careless. “So sorry. Walk my way when you get back, then, sweetheart.” And then she’s gone.

The audacity of that woman to call her _sweetheart_. Blake flees to the washroom to calm her burning face.

When she emerges, Yang is across the bar with her two friends. They stand in a clump together and laugh about something shared and silly. As Blake watches, they are joined by a couple guys, clearly with ulterior intentions.

Blake looks at her abandoned barstool. Too close to Yang’s crowd. She looks at Yang. Too close to her own crowd. She looks at the door. Ah, yes, the exit door. The right distance, and definitely the right decision, at this point -

“Hey!” Yang yells, and then she’s striding across the bar and Blake is trapped, helpless in the face of this golden advance.

“So I never got your name,” Yang grins. “Remember mine?”

“Yang,” Blake blurts, without thinking.

Yang blinks once, her grin faltering as though she genuinely hadn’t expected Blake to remember. “That’s me. What’s yours?”

“I’m Blake. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Blake. That’s a cool name. What do you do, Blake?”

“I’m in grad school. For law.”

“Oh _shit_. So my next question is how do you handle being this cool?”

Blake can’t help but giggle at that. “I’m not that cool.”

“You _do_ smile,” Yang says, and the look in her eyes takes Blake’s breath away for a single heartbeat of time.

“U-um, so,” Blake stammers, trying to refocus. “What do you do?”

“Oh, me? Auto mechanic. None of that university business for me. I work in a shop, but I usually take care of all the bikes that come in. They’re my specialty. I have my own, wanna see?”

Blake can only nod, mutely, and as she follows Yang out the door she feels lightheaded, like her soda might’ve been mixed hard by accident. Yang’s bike is ridiculously flamboyant. It’s painted black and a bright, bright yellow, and orange flames travel up its sides.

“Customized her myself,” Yang explains proudly. “She’s a Harley at heart, but I basically rebuilt her from scratch. What d’you think?”

Blake is thinking a lot of things, but none of them seem appropriate to vocalize, so she just says, “It’s really cool.”

Yang grins wider than Blake ever thought it possible for someone to grin. “So, can I buy you a soda?”


	2. shop

Sun reappears at the end of the weekend, his eyes distant and his hair unbrushed. She bustles him into their shared apartment and sits him firmly on the couch, placing a glass of water in his hands. “Explain,” she commands him.

“I met this guy,” Sun murmurs dreamily. “I met this guy.”

Blake sits back, sighs in exasperation. Of course he _met a guy._ “God damn it, Sun. I thought you were dead. How amazing _is_ this guy for you to return literally none of my calls?”

“Neptune,” Sun breathes. “His name is Neptune.”

“Okay, cool name. I guess I’ll let it slide for now. But you’re on thin fucking ice, buddy.”

“Aw, Blake. You’re like my _mom_.”

“Yeah, well, you need it.”

He shakes his head, his mind clearly on other things - other things being some dude named Neptune, apparently. “What’d you do this weekend?”

Blake smiles to herself, drifts towards the kitchen to get dinner started. “It was good. I met someone too.”

That shakes Sun from his stupor, and she hears him spit out water. “ _What_? Who was it? What happened?”

“Nothing yet,” Blake shoots back. “Siddown.”

“Aw, at least give me a physical description. Is it a guy or a girl?”

“A girl,” Blake supplies, pasta pot familiarly cold against her palms. “And she - she shines. Like gold.”

“Oooooo,” he intones from couch. “Didja get puss?”

Blake sighs, brings the pasta to boil. “Sun, I’m twenty-five. I have things to do. I can’t just fuck around.”

“Loosen up, man! Are you at least seeing her again soon?”

“I don’t know.” The pasta is golden, shimmering under her hands. “We’ll have to see.”

* * *

She does see, three days later. Her Wednesdays are relatively light, and Blake likes to frequent a coffee shop downtown, with a lot of hanging plants in the windows and extremely feminine teen boy baristas. She goes for the plants and the background jazz, not the boys. But the boys definitely add to the hipster energy.

So she’s in there around four in the afternoon with her laptop open on the table and a warm oat milk latte at her wrist, when the doorbells chime and in walks Yang. She’s wearing a pair of faded cargo pants and a muscle shirt. Her arms are streaked with grease, her hair in a flyaway, golden ponytail.

Blake stares.

Yang strides up to the counter with the ease of a regular and orders a black coffee. Blake stares. Yang turns and winks at her. One of the boys brings her coffee. Blake stares. Yang sits down across from her, uninvited. “Hey, Blake,” she says lightly. “I look like a greasy nut right now, so kindly avert your pretty gaze.”

“Hey,” is all Blake can think to respond.

“You come here too, then?”

“Oh, uh, yeah. Usually on Wednesdays. If I have time. My course load is the lightest on Wednesdays.” Why share the details? Blake doesn’t know. The words just come out.

“Fair, fair. Surprised I haven’t seen you here before. My shop is right around the corner.”

“Oh shoot. You work at Qrow’s?”

“Hah, yes! Qrow is actually my uncle. Believe it or not.”

Blake thinks that’s really fucking neat, but at the moment she can’t respond, because Yang pulls a flask out of the thigh pocket on her cargo pants and pours a generous dollop of glimmering something into her coffee. “Just an afternoon kick,” she explains. Blake shifts in her seat. Her palms go clammy, and she grips onto the body of her latte to repress it.

“So you work for your uncle,” she says.

“Yeah, cranky old guy, but gotta love him. He taught me everything I know about - okay, y’know what, maybe not everything, but a lot of things. Obviously there was trade school and my own tinkering and everything else. But I definitely have it easy, for my age. So many people get the degree and then can’t enter the job market right away because everyone else got the degree too. But me, well, I was practically born in the shop.” She laughs, then gulps her coffee - spiked coffee, now. Blake eyes her. Notices the tension leaving her shoulders, the softening of her jaw, the drift of her lavender eyes. Blake sees things and thinks too hard about them, so she decides it’s time to leave.

“So soon?” Yang doesn’t bother to hide her disappointment ( _Blake’s chest flutters_ ). “Wanna pop by the shop on the way out? I’ll give you the ol’ tour. Unless that sounds totally boring.”

In another life it _would_ sound totally boring, but Blake is inexplicably drawn to Yang’s obvious obsession with her work. She gets the sense that, if given the chance, this woman would go on for hours about mechanics. She also gets the sense that she’d be more than happy to listen. So she shoves down intrusive thought patterns and follows Yang to Qrow’s. Yang downs the rest of her coffee in one go before they head out.

The shop is like any other, loud and oil-drenched and cluttered with a lot of things Blake hasn’t the foggiest about how to use. Men in the auto garage holler greetings to Yang and she hurls them back with matched vigour before leading Blake around the side of the building, to a smaller garage. It’s full of grease and mysterious things but there aren’t any men in sight; just two sleek black motorcycles and a murmuring cassette radio.

“I basically live here,” Yang laughs. “But don’t worry, I promise I have an actual home too, so don’t write me off yet!”

Blake can’t fathom writing her off. Not yet, anyway. “You’re fixing these?”

“Not truly fixing, just an annual tuneup for the both of them. Belong to a really posh old couple. They’re regulars, always looking to keep their rides in tip-top condition. They like to travel a lot - y’know, that type of nomadic boomer husband-and-wife - so the girls need a lot of love and attention. Plus, deep pockets.” She laughs again. “Always keeping me fed and clothed.”

“They’re beautiful bikes,” Blake concedes. “I know nothing about bikes, but these ones are very sleek.”

“They’re 2010 Harley Road Kings. Basically the marker point for when Harley-Davidson proved they could produce a bike that’d take you cross-country, not just cross-city. Hey, wanna meet my uncle?”

Blake’s not exactly a _meet new people_ type of girl, but her decision is made for her when the door at the far end of the garage bangs open and a lanky, shaggy-black-haired man walks in. His five-o’clock shadow appears to be several days old. His shirtsleeves are fraying and he wields a massive wrench in his left hand.

“Oh hey, Uncle Qrow,” Yang greets him. “I was just going to go look for you.”

“Well, here I am.” His voice rasps like a smoker’s, deep and jagged. “Who’s this?”

“This is a new friend, Blake. Blake, this is my uncle and boss, Qrow Branwen.”

“Nice to meetcha.” He closes the distance between them and grasps Blake’s hand with a callused palm. “Don’t let my niece talk your ear off, the little grease monkey.”

“Hey,” Yang protests, but Blake is giggling.

“It’s alright,” she assures them both. “It’s interesting stuff. But I definitely should get going, so…”

“Let me grab your number,” Yang interjects.

Blake’s heart stutters, but she schools her face and types her digits into the blank contact Yang offers her. And then she bids goodbye to the two mechanics and walks out into the street, and her heart keeps stuttering, and Blake can’t remember the last time she felt this level of infatuation. It must’ve been so very, very long ago.


	3. bedroom

_Yang: heyyyyy it’s yang!!!_

_Blake: hi!_

_Yang: watcha up to friday night?_

_Blake: not too much, i have a term paper due next monday though_

_Yang: damnnnn._

_Yang: would you still be down to go out?_

_Blake: depends what that entails haha_

_Yang: whatever you want. i’m usually just at beacon every weekend_

_Yang: i usually go with a couple friends, would you wanna come? :)_

_Blake: hmm maybe_

_Blake: can i bring a friend too?_

_Yang: YEAH! the more the merrier >:)_

_Blake: cool, we can meet you guys there then_

_Blake: he’s helplessly gay, but please be nice to him, he is just a baby_

_Yang: helplessly gay lmao_

_Yang: i already relate to this man_

_Blake: 10 ish?_

_Yang: seeya then!_

* * *

Sun brings Neptune to Beacon on Friday, and Ren ends up tagging along too. Neptune’s a tall guy, with saturated blue hair and a sort of hippie-steampunk sense of style. If Blake puts herself in Sun’s shoes, she can see the appeal. Neptune’s got broad shoulders and he’s a few inches taller. Sun’s bottom ass wouldn’t stand a chance. Blake is mildly amused.

Neptune’s good company, too, and Blake finds it easy to banter with him even while driving. Turns out he’s a Beacon regular, too. Then again, everyone under thirty is a Beacon regular in these parts.

Yang ( _brown bomber jacket and black jeans_ ) and the two girls from last week are already two rounds of shots in. Yang introduces the pink-haired girl as Nora and the icy-eyed girl as Weiss.

“You don’t drink?” Weiss asks incredulously. “Why bother even going to a bar, then?”

Blake shrugs, feeling testy. “I like the atmosphere. You don’t need alcohol to have fun.”

“Touché,” Nora pops in. Nora brims with more energy than Blake thinks she’s ever had in her entire life. “I respect that, Blake. Plus you’ll never get liver damage. Also your name is super cool. Like, mysterious-undercover-spy-woman cool. Are you an undercover spy?”

“I wouldn’t be undercover if I answered that,” Blake retorts, smiling in spite of herself, and Nora literally guffaws.

“Yang tells me you’re in law school,” Weiss puts in. “I’m a grad student, too. Business.”

“That’s cool,” Blake responds, but what’s _really_ cool is that _Yang talked about me to her friends Yang talked about me to her friends Yang talked about me Yang talked about me._

“Round three!” Yang interjects, yelling half to her friends and half to the bartender. Blake scans the room for Sun and Neptune; they’ve drifted off down the bar, huddled close together over some colourful martini. Blake smiles. It’s good to see something working out for Sun, for once.

“So that’s your helplessly gay friend?” Yang asks, her mouth close enough to Blake’s ear for her to feel the warm puff of her breath. “Doesn’t seem so helpless right now. Is that his boyfriend?”

“Maybe. Soon, probably.”

“We love to see it.” The third round poured, Yang turns her attention back to the bar and her friends, and they knock it back on three, in unison. Blake takes a seat at the bar and orders a soda.

The rounds increase and the night rolls on, until eventually Nora has disappeared with Ren ( _suspicious_ ) and Weiss has followed a hunky blonde dude out the back door and it’s just Yang and Blake at the bar, and Yang is waist-deep in alcohol and Blake is getting tired, and then Yang invites her over.

Yang’s drunk as hell, and Blake knows that, and Blake says yes anyway. Blake drives according to Yang's direction, and sees her place for the first time.

It’s a townhouse, slim and lacking in yard, but Blake is sure it’s more than her student budget could afford. Must be all that motorcycle money. Inside, it’s surprisingly minimalistic. Bare-bones art and a mildly rust-toned tapestry make for wall deco. The unassuming beige couch has a loveseat, and a fluffy white throw is draped across it. A few houseplants dot the space with green. In the open kitchen, dark marble counters play host to a tiny red Keurig and a couple other plain-looking appliances. And bottles. Many, many empty bottles. They line the shelf below the window like a frat boy’s trophy wall, like the households of the kids that host university parties, their colour-coded records of consistent insobriety. Blake’s mouth runs dry.

“I do like my booze,” Yang says, catching Blake’s stare. But Blake is certain, somehow, that the story doesn’t end there - and that thought makes her whole body feel cold, so she acts unaffected and asks to see the upstairs.

“No upstairs,” Yang explains. “Just a nice big basement. I sleep down there, it’s very cozy. Want to check it out?”

Yang’s basement _is_ cozy - a wraparound couch and a widescreen TV dominate the open floor, flanked by tall stereos and a rack full of gaming equipment. A bookshelf stands sentinel, and upon Blake’s scrutiny she discovers that most of the books relate to mechanics, a discovery that makes her smile. The basement is partitioned by a curtain of the same fabric as the tapestry upstairs. Beyond the curtain is Yang’s bedroom. She has a futon-style bed with an enormous amount of pillows on it, and a yellow beanbag chair slouches in the corner. The walls are strewn with posters and photos. Qrow working on a car, brow furrowed in concentration. Baby Yang with a smiling, red-highlighted woman. A little grey dog with a lolling tongue and big ears. Yang, Weiss, Nora and an unfamiliar girl at the beach. Blake’s eyes linger on that one without really meaning to.

“It’s a different vibe from the upstairs, obviously,” Yang says, hands on hips, surveying her territory. “I like a tidy, uncluttered house, but this is my personal space, so I just do whatever.”

Blake is attracted by an unassuming row of trophies lining a thin shelf above the bed. “What’re these for?”

“Those? Boxing. I was deep into that shit in high school, but I don’t have a lot of time for it anymore.”

The trophies glint gold in the half-light. _2015 Gold - Yang Xiao Long. 2016 Gold - Yang Xiao Long. 2017 Platinum - Yang Xiao Long._

“That’s really impressive,” Blake murmurs, meaning it. Yang gets fidgety and rubs the back of her neck.

“Like I said, I don’t do it anymore.”

Blake sits gingerly on the edge of the bed, runs her palms over its neat spread. “I actually studied karate when I was younger, but I’m too busy to do it now. Same as you.”

Yang’s eyes widen comically. “I am once again asking you to explain, Blake. How do you contain this much cool inside your body?”

The slur in her voice reminds Blake sharply that Yang is still wasted. The urge to run is overwhelming. The urge to stay is overpowering. They lock in a death grip, and Blake shudders involuntarily, scans the room for something else to latch onto. “Who’s this dog?”

Yang flops onto the bed next to her. “That’s Zwei. My little sister’s dog.”

“You have a sister?”

“Oh, yeah. Here she is.” Yang jabs a finger at the fourth girl in the beach photo. She’s got pixie-cut black hair and a huge grin and a massive ice cream in her hands. “Ruby. She’s a little punk, but I love her. She’s two years younger than me. Just finished her undergrad.”

“Wow, you two look nothing alike.”

“Mm. We’re half-sisters actually. Same dad, different moms. But we were raised together.” Yang gestures to the smiling woman in the baby photo. “That’s Ruby’s real mom, but she was basically my mom, too.”

The wistful sadness in Yang’s voice makes Blake pause. “And… what about your real mom?”

Blake knows instantly that she’s pushed too far, because Yang sits straight up and avoids eye contact. “She’s been gone a long time,” she says vaguely. Her flask makes an appearance from her inside-jacket pocket, does its work and disappears again. Blake apologizes softly. Yang turns around and reaches for her, running callused fingers from her shoulder to her elbow. Blake shudders, leans towards her, and then remembers herself and scrambles to her feet.

“I- I should go,” she rushes, plucking up her discarded jacket and shrugging it on. “Thanks for the tour.”

“Hey, wait.” Yang grabs her hand and Blake feels electrocuted.

“Sorry, I have something to do tomorrow morning.”

“When will I see you again?”

“I don’t know. Text me.” Blake doesn’t mean to be brusque, but panic is closing her throat and Yang’s room is too small. She wriggles out of the other woman’s grasp. “See you later.”

“See you,” Yang replies quietly, and when Blake sneaks a glance back over her shoulder, she’s watching Blake push back the curtain with an empty sort of look on her face, and her hand is hooked into the pocket on the inside of her jacket.


	4. park

“She’s pretty,” Sun comments over coffee the next morning, having just said an awkward goodbye to Neptune and wandered back into the kitchen with a dazed look in his eyes.

Blake doesn’t turn around from the eggs she’s frying. “She drinks too much.”

“Oh.” Sun gets up and comes to her side, and together they watch the eggs sizzle and mutate.

“Yeah, well. Whatever.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that, Blakey. I had good feelings about this one.”

“Me too.”

“Damn. Fuck love, anyway.”

“Sun, you just got absolutely railed by a tall guy with blue hair, and now you look like comic-book-era Archie Andrews at the beach. You don’t need to piggyback on my angst right now.”

“Point taken. It was _very_ good sex.”

“Alas for my sleep schedule,” Blake mutters wryly. But she’s happy for him.

“Hey!” Sun protests. “Not my fault you’re too stingy to buy noise cancellers!”

“Whatever.”

Blake’s halfway through her plate of eggs when her phone lights up with a text from Yang. “Hey, sorry about…” reads the notification. Blake shuts her eyes. Thinks about that row of bottles, the way they glittered like knives. Thinks about Yang and her golden hair and her tired lavender eyes. Her metal right arm. The smell of grease that clings to her and the ripple of muscle across her back and down her shoulders. The flask in her thigh pocket. Her big sunny smile. The flask.

Blake opens the text.

_Yang: hey, sorry about last night. i feel like i upset you. how can I make it up to you? say the word and i’m on it._

Blake can’t answer that. Yang isn’t at fault here. Or maybe she is. But mainly it’s just Blake, the things she’s running away from, the past that snarls at her heels even when she takes a new direction. The fear that everything will cycle back in on itself again and she’ll just end up in the same place she was last year.

Blake can’t answer that. She shuts off her phone and buries herself in her term paper until the weekend is over.

* * *

But Yang doesn’t let up, and eventually Blake allows herself to be won over, agreeing to meet her again at the hipster coffee shop next to Qrow’s. She orders an oat milk latte and Yang has her black coffee. Blake waits, apprehensive. The flask comes out. Yang, oblivious, performs the action as though it is second nature. Which Blake is certain it must be.

They chat for a while about mundane things, but Blake’s mind is elsewhere, and when Yang suggests they take a walk through the little park across the street she agrees without thinking. So they stroll beneath autumn-browned leaves and listen to them crunch beneath their feet, and the breeze laments above their heads. Yang reaches across the divide and takes Blake’s hand in her left one, her real one. She’s warm.

“Hey, I want to apologize for Friday again,” Yang says seriously. “I don’t know what happened, I was really drunk. But I hope I didn’t ruin my chances.”

Blake mulls that over in her head. She thinks about chances. She thinks about fate. She thinks about Yang.

“I don’t think so,” she says eventually, because she walks a fine line between surrendering to the way Yang’s hand feels in hers and holding back from what she knows isn’t healthy. She could fall off on either side, and she isn’t sure which side would be preferable, at this point. So she stays in the middle.

Yang smiles crookedly, squeezes her hand. “Glad to hear it. D’you want to tell me what happened? Or is it way too soon for that kind of talk?”

“Way too soon,” Blake concedes, but she isn’t certain.

“You’re probably right. But whatever it is, I can handle it, so let me know whenever you feel like it. I’d just rather minimize the things I do wrong, y’know?” And she laughs, but Blake hears something else in her voice that she chooses not to linger on.

Blake doesn’t know what she feels like or what whatever she’s feeling means. She doesn’t know the right move, let alone the wrong one. Instead she picks the first thing out of the hat and asks Yang about her drinking habits. The words leave her breathless, like she holds the future in her hands after expressing them.

A shield comes down over Yang’s entire demeanour. “Yeah, I drink a lot, clearly,” she says, a tightness in her voice that makes Blake’s bones shiver. “It’s a habit more than anything, really.”

Blake doesn’t believe her. But she doesn’t say so.

“You don’t drink at all?” Yang asks.

“Well. Not a lot. Sometimes its nice to order something colourful, but only for special occasions. I’m just not a big fan.”

“Why’s that?”

Blake doesn’t respond. Yang justifies herself. “It’s just, I feel like, uncommon to meet anyone so confidently sober at our age. You’re twenty-five, right? I’m only freshly twenty-five, so maybe I have a different perspective.” She laughs. “But, like, y’know. We’re still the demographic getting ID’d at the liquor store and the dispensary. Speaking of, do you smoke at all? Weed?”

Blake shakes her head. Yang blows a long gust of air between her teeth.

“I’m impressed! - Yet _so_ curious. But no pressure.”

“It’s not actually that uncommon, you know,” Blake retorts defensively.

“I know, I know. I just feel like you, specifically, have a backstory to go with it.”

Blake shrugs, regretting the walk. “Bad associations.”

“Ah.” Yang doesn’t push, and they come full circle in silence. Across the road, Qrow’s auto garage is open to the autumn air, men shouting and clanging around inside.

“I better get back to the grindstone,” Yang says.

“Yeah,” Blake agrees, letting go of her hand. “Me too.”


	5. kitchen

A week goes by before Blake sees Yang again, a week of avoiding her texts and “missing” her calls. When they meet again, it’s by accident.

It’s pouring rain, and Blake is waiting at a downtown bus stop for her transfer, cursing herself for choosing not to take the car today. It was so sunny this morning, and Blake thought she’d do herself a favour and walk to campus - the whole half hour - and now it’s pouring, and she’s stuck waiting for a late bus in the rain like a high school kid. Damn it all.

So she’s shivering and soaked, huddling under the skimpy overhang of a closed jewellery shop and peering down the street. No sign of the bus, but someone else is foolish enough to be out in the rain tonight, and it turns out to be Yang. Fate is unpredictable like that.

She notices Blake instantly, running to join her beneath the overhang. “Blake!” She practically yells. “Fancy meeting you here!”

“Where’s your bike?” Blake asks through clattering teeth.

“Left her in the shop,” Yang sighs. “She needs some work. I’m regretting that now. Is there a bus coming?”

“Supposedly. I’ve been here for ten, fifteen minutes.”

“ _God_ that’s awful. You looks so cold. Here, take my coat.” And before Blake can protest, Yang is slinging off her brown bomber jacket and draping it around Blake’s shoulders. It smells of oil and heat and something crisper and artificial, like a very clean-scented deodorant. 

“You’ll get wet,” Blake protests weakly.

“I’ll be fine!”

Too taken aback to protest, Blake pulls the coat around herself and instantly feels warmer. And the bus screeches to the stop, spraying up a wave of water - and they both leap back, Yang with a holler of outrage. The driver waves apologetically, the doors hiss open; Blake and Yang run for cover.

The bus is nearly empty, so they take control of the very back row of seats and flop down, soaked and panting. The city rushes by outside, streaks of light blending and blurring with the rain fogging the bus windows.

Blake realizes something. “Does this bus take you home?”

Yang is silent for a moment, and then she laughs loudly. The old lady sitting in the front part of the bus glares back at them. “Nope! I just followed you on. I have literally no idea where I’m going.”

Blake can’t help but laugh, smacking Yang’s wet shoulder with the back of her hand. “Silly. Are we at least going in the right general direction?”

“No clue,” Yang admits, still laughing.

“Oh my god,” Blake drawls, rolling her eyes. “You’d better come over to mine, then.”

“Not a bad outcome, honestly.” Yang smirks, and Blake fights down an encroaching blush.

She texts Sun in advance to warn him but receives no response, and the apartment is dark and empty when they stagger inside at last, dripping rain water everywhere. Yang shakes her mane of golden hair like a dog; droplets smack Blake’s cheek. She flicks the hallway lights on and calls for Sun. No answer.

“He’s probably at Neptune’s,” she concludes out loud.

Yang chuckles behind her. “I didn’t know Sun was your roommate.”

“Oh, yeah. Been stuck with him for almost a year now.”

“That’s cute.”

“Want anything to drink?”

“What you got?”

“Uh… orange juice, apple juice, red wine, an assortment of teas, coffee, some ominous-looking liquid in an unlabelled bottle that probably belongs to Sun. Take your pick.”

“Orange juice sounds great. Mind if I spike it?”

Blake minds, but she just nods in assent, feeling a weird surge of guilt at the note of hesitation in Yang’s voice. It’s not her place to curb Yang’s habits. She repeats this to herself again and again, silently, while she pours orange juice and lets Yang spike it generously and watches Yang drink it too fast. When she puts down the glass, Yang says, “Wow, I was sober for _way_ too long today.”

Blake puts some water on to boil tells Yang to follow her upstairs. She fishes clean sweatpants and socks and a faded karate T-shirt out of her drawers, hands them to Yang, and points her in the direction of the bathroom. She replaces her own wet clothes with dry ones, folds Yang’s jacket neatly onto the bed, and hollers instructions for Yang to leave her wet things in the hamper in Blake’s room. Then she trots back downstairs to make tea.

Yang joins her momentarily, her hair mussed and the shirt too tight around her shoulders. Blake’s spine tingles. Yang. Yang in _her_ clothes.

“Want some tea?” Blake asks.

“Sure.” Yang grins and claims a chair. “Your place is so cute.”

“Thanks. Sun’s mad into interior design. I think he wants to go to school for it, eventually.”

“He’s not in school now?”

“Nah, he dropped out in our second year. I swear he has a new job every week. I think the latest is at a greenhouse?”

“What a character.”

“Right?”

Blake pours tea for them both, glancing sidelong at Yang when she takes the other chair. Does one spike tea? The thought is abhorrent to Blake: alcoholic tea? What could possibly be more twisted? And thankfully Yang probably feels the same, because she just sips it and remarks on the taste. Blake is silently relieved.

“This tea is so nostalgic,” Yang sighs, and Blake looks at her and notices sadness tugging at her eyes.

“Chamomile tea,” Blake says.

“Yeah, that. Summer made it all the time. Whenever Ruby and I couldn’t sleep.”

“Summer?”

“Ruby’s mom.”

“Ah. It’s very relaxing tea. She knew her stuff.”

“She really did.”

Silence stretches between them and Blake doesn’t know how to fill it anymore. She doesn’t know why she brought Yang home. It’s not like it was the only option - they could’ve easily figured out how to get her back to her place. Blake doesn’t know what she’s holding out for. She barely knows Yang; what she does know, she should be working to avoid. In another life, she’d be sprinting as fast as possible in the opposite direction. But here is she in her kitchen with Yang three feet away from her and she’s run out of things to say.

Yang looks at Blake and clears her throat. Blake watches it bob up, down. Yang leans across the table and, her face inches from Blake’s, whispers, “You’re really fucking pretty, you know that?”

And Blake can’t control her hand when it reaches up, buries itself in Yang’s golden curls and pulls her in. The kiss is soft, like chamomile. Sweet, like orange juice. Sharp, like liquor.

Blake can feel her heartbeat to the tips of her toes.

Yang leans all the way across the table and take Blake’s waist. She pulls her up, swings her around, and Blake’s lower back collides softly with the edge of the counter by the sink. Blood rushes in her ears. Heat plummets through her stomach. She grabs at Yang’s back like a lifeline and Yang slips her fingertips under Blake’s shirt and Yang’s right hand is cold and metallic against her stomach and then Blake breaks the kiss, panting.

“Let me close the curtains,” she whispers. Yang grins.


	6. hallway

In the following weeks, Blake and Yang do a lot of things together. They go to the hipster cafe. They go to Beacon. Yang meets her on campus and they wander through the gardens. Blake visits Qrow’s and hands out the cookies she baked the night before - the shop men love her now. Blake meets Ruby, Yang’s little sister. Ruby has the energy of the five-year-old and the eyes of a fifty-year-old. She reminds Blake of Yang in this way, but Ruby seems a lot more mentally stable. Although Blake would never say it out loud.

And Yang does a lot of things. Like sending flowers to Blake’s apartment for no reason. Taking her for a night ride on her bike without prior notice. She laughs at Blake’s jokes and listens to her talk about school and asks about her day and fucks her like she’s the only woman in the world. Like she’s kindling and Yang is fire.

Two weeks go by, and Blake becomes vividly aware that Yang isn’t spiking her coffee anymore. Fifty percent of the time, her eyes are glazed, her speech careless. But for the other fifty percent she’s just Yang, and in this interval Blake starts to learn things about her, real things. Like that her favourite colour is yellow and her dad calls her ‘Sunny Little Dragon’ and she drinks her coffee black whether it’s spiked or not and she likes zippers on her clothes and her bike’s name is Bumblebee and she hates it when strangers touch her hair and once, in an empty country bar, she knocked out a man’s front teeth for doing just that. She hears about the metal arm, how it replaced one Yang lost in a shop accident three years ago. How she customized it herself and it’s “basically better than the old one.” How Yang took a while to heal in many ways but now she perfectly alright, and “even more badass” for having gone through it.

And Blake grows familiar with those lavender eyes. She can tell when Yang is sober. And when she is not. And one night, in the third week, Yang turns up at her building and Blake knows right away that she’s been drinking.

“Hi,” Blake says warily, not moving to invite her in.

“I was thinking about you,” Yang explains, her eyes glinting under the stark hallway lights. “Really _thinking_ about you, I mean.”

And there’s a knot of fear in Blake’s belly, but she smiles and lets Yang in and Yang shoves her up against the wall and bites her neck. Blake thinks she might be stuck here, in the flash of Yang’s hair and the sharpness of her breath and the press of her hands all over her body. She aches for Yang and she aches for freedom. From herself, from her fear. And maybe from Yang, too. But that’s a dangerous thought.

“Stop,” Blake rasps suddenly, pressing back on Yang’s shoulders. “Yang, stop.”

Yang moves away a little, concern knitting her eyebrows. “Are you okay?”

But something changes inside Blake. Something deeply buried and stretched far too thin snaps, and Blake can almost hear its echo. She slides out from under Yang’s arms and backs away down the hall. Her pulse thunders. Her ears burn. Yang starts after her and Blake shoots up a hand to halt her progress.

“What’s wrong?” Yang persists, her voice tinged with anxiety.

Blake stares at her, at the muss of her bangs, the frown of her forehead, the swim of her eyes. She says, “Do you like me when you’re sober?”

A deafening silence settles over the hallway. Yang freezes. She blinks once, twice. “Of course I do,” she whispers, like she might break something if she says it louder.

“Then- then please.” Blake’s shoulders heave against her will. She wraps her arms around herself, trying to quell the tears, trying to say what she needs to say. “Please go away. You can come back whenever you want. I’m always going to let you in. But just - I can’t now. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” And she can’t finish it, because now she’s crying, and the force of it might tear her to pieces if she tries to speak through.

Yang starts towards her, but Blake’s hand shoots back up, and she stops again. _Like a game of wax museum_ , comments an intrusive thought. Blake wants to laugh. She wants to scream. She wants to crack open her own head, reach in, take her all memories and knowledge of Yang Xiao Long and tear them out. Burn them. Bury them six feet under the ground. It would be easier. It would be _so much easier_. But here’s Yang right in front of her, hands limp at her sides, lavender eyes so very, very sad.

“I’m sorry,” Yang says quietly, and the space between them makes her words sound hollow. “It _is_ a problem, and I haven’t been upfront with you about that. But it’s been better. It’s been a lot better.” _Since I met you_ is what she doesn’t say, but Blake hears it as though she had. She turns away and walks into the kitchen.

“Please leave,” she rasps.

The silence seems to swallow everything. After a long, long moment, Blake hears the door open and shut behind her.


	7. couch

A week drags by and Blake’s phone is silent.

On Friday she goes to Beacon with Sun and Neptune, and the first thing she sees is the top of Yang’s head. She’s alone tonight, her back to the room, hunched over a glass of something that makes Blake’s stomach flip. Blake turns around and walks right out the door. Yang doesn’t notice.

“We have to do something to get you to stop pining after this girl,” Sun remarks the next day. “She’s no good for you, Blake.”

“I’m not pining,” Blake snaps. But maybe she is. She can’t tell up from down anymore.

On Sunday night Sun and Neptune go out together and Blake sits alone in the kitchen, watching the sky darken outside, and when there’s a buzz at her door she knows instantly it’s Yang. She sits very still and holds her breath. Yang doesn’t buzz again.

Eventually, Blake gets up and opens the door.

“Hey,” Yang says, and her eyes are sober.“Can I come in?”

And Blake, like the stupid, stupid idiot she is, lets her in.

They sit on either side of the couch and Blake lets the silence fall. She watches the unsteady rise and fall of Yang’s shoulders, the way she avoids eye contact, the way her hands clutch each other nervously. How much must it have taken, for her to come here sober? How much mustering and worrying and planning? How much fear? How much courage?

Yang inhales unsteadily. When she speaks, she speaks to the wall opposite the couch.

“I just wanted,” she starts, and then inhales again. “I just wanted to say goodbye.”

Her voice cracks on the last word. Blake stares. Stunned.

“I really like you, Blake,” she goes on, her voice strained with something fragile. “I really do. But I don’t want to be in your life if it hurts you. You deserve better. A lot better. And I can’t give that to you. So I’m going to stop trying.” The knuckles on her real hand are white. “And I hope you can forgive me. For that. And for everything else.”

Yang looks at her then, and her eyes are tired. Exhaustion bends her shoulders. Seeps from her form and covers Blake like a cloud.

Blake doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what to think, doesn’t know what to feel. It was so easy, just like that - but it feels so much harder. So maybe it’s time for the truth.

“I had a boyfriend,” Blake whispers. And Yang turns to listen.

“We were together for many years. A long time. He was smart and different, and he had ideas. A lot of ideas about how things are and how they should be. I loved him for that.” She stops, breathes. Closes her eyes.

“But he was hurt, too, and that hurt turned into drinking. So much drinking. Which made him angry. Which - “ Her voice hitches; she fights for composure. “Which didn’t end well for me. It took me a long time to get away from him. Every time I tried to leave, I’d only get more stuck. One night it got bad, really, really bad, but Sun happened to be on his way over and he saw what was going on and he called the cops.” She pauses, collects herself, battles tears.

“Where is he now?” Yang whispers, and her voice has gone hard.

“I don’t know. At home, I guess. He wasn’t convicted. But I did file a restraining order. And I moved here for school, so there’s a lot of distance between us now. But I just - “ and here are the tears, warm on her cheeks. “I’m still afraid. I think I always will be.”

“And I make you that kind of afraid,” Yang says. It’s not a question. It’s a fact, and Blake doesn’t have the power to refute it anymore.

“Yes.” Tears speckle her lap. “But I like you so much and I don’t know what to do about it, I don’t know, I don’t know - “

Yang closes the gap between them and pulls Blake into her arms, and Blake buries her face in Yang’s shoulder and sobs.

“I’m sorry,” Yang whispers into her hair. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could be different. I _want_ to be different. But I just.” And all Blake can do is hold her like she’s a plank of wood in an endless ocean. Like she’s a frayed balloon string, and one false movement will send her reeling back into the open sky. Blake cries. Yang cries. They dissolve into salt water on the couch and everything comes to pieces and builds itself back up again.

And when the ocean has dried itself up it’s just the two of them and the quiet, dead things after the tide has gone out. Yang brushes Blake’s hair behind her ears and wipes her cheeks with the pads of her thumbs.

“You’re so beautiful,” she murmurs hoarsely.

Blake can only shake her head.

“I’ll go,” Yang whispers, like a plea, and everything in Blake clamours to pull her back. Pin her down, keep her safe. Hold her until everything that haunts her fades to black and it’s just Yang, Yang with clear eyes, Yang with bright eyes, Yang with happy eyes. But she lets her go because she has to. She watches Yang roll back her shoulders and stand with the grace of a dancer. Move across the room and pause in the foyer. Turn back to her with an expression of hopelessness.

“Maybe we’ll meet again,” Yang says quietly, and it sounds like a request.

“Maybe we will,” Blake rasps, and it sounds like a denial.

Yang turns and goes out the door. In the silence, Blake curls herself into the couch. It smells of oil and salt and chamomile tea.


	8. bar, part two

Years drift past, and time turns feelings into memories.

Blake graduates with her law degree and takes a position in a downtown firm. She stops going to the hipster cafe. She buys a house and adopts a cat. Sun goes back to school. Neptune proposes. Blake dates a girl named Ilya for a few months and leaves when she starts to feel empty. She adopts another cat. Plants a herb garden in her backyard. Frequents a second-hand bookstore, befriends the old guy who runs it. Gets promoted. Lets Sun redesign her living room. Years drift past, and suddenly she’s turning thirty.

Sun and Neptune are coming over in an hour to help decorate, and later on a few of Blake’s colleagues and friends will arrive to mingle. She cuts cheese into little squares and tidies the living room. She arranges drinks in a line behind the cheese: red wine, white wine, fruit punch, that brandy Sun is fond of. She leaves a gap for the cake Neptune informed her he’d be baking. She puts lasagna in the oven. She turns on the radio and the kitchen fills with the first few strains of Ravel’s _Pavane for a Dead Princess_.

Blake is pouring herself a cup of tea and ruminating over the implications of being three decades on this earth when the doorbell rings.

Sun and Neptune are here early, she thinks, taking her tea with her to let them in. When she opens the door, she is blinded by the sun.

In five years Yang hasn’t changed a whole lot, but her aura feels more subdued. Her bomber jacket has been replaced by a long brown trench coat, her combat boots by a functional pair of knee-highs. But her hair is the same, cascading over her forehead and shoulders like a mane of sunlight, and her eyes are a rich shade of lavender in the glow of the winter night.

Blake wonders how Yang sees _her_ , all these years later. That’s the first thing she wonders. The second thing is something more like _how the hell did she find my house_ and the third goes along the lines of _why do I feel like I’m having a heart attack?_

What she actually says is, “What’s up?”

“I did it,” Yang says, her voice rich and soft like honey. “I’m sober.”

Blake stares at her, and all the breath leaves her body. Yang laughs. Blake stares. Yang laughs. And then Blake laughs too.

“Can I come in?” Yang gasps. “It’s fucking _cold_.”

Blake nods through shakes and spurts of giggles and Yang tramps into the front hall, stamping excess snow from her boots. Blake ushers her into the kitchen and pours her a cup of chamomile tea.

“I feel we’ve been here before,” Yang observes wryly. “Except back then you didn’t have such a big place. I take it the lawyer gig worked out for you?”

Blake giggles. She can’t stop giggling. “Yeah, pretty much. It’s not the worst gig in the world.”

“That’s really good to hear,” Yang says, so genuine it makes Blake want to cry. “I’m still in the old townhouse. It’s too cozy to leave, man. So what else is going on?”

“Well, it’s my birthday today - “

“I know,” Yang cuts in automatically, and then her face crumples into a blush. “Oops, sorry. I promise I’m not a stalker. Just a good memory, y’know? Happy birthday.”

Blake snorts. Warmth travels from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. “I’m surprised you remembered.”

“Yeah, well. You’re not exactly forgettable, Blake,” Yang says, and the intensity that floods into her eyes leaves Blake feeling off-balance.

“So, uh,” she stammers. “How’d you find me?”

“Oh, I just texted Sun.”

“ _Sun_? He actually gave you that information? No offence.”

“Well, y’know, first there was the probationary period. Had to meet him somewhere public and swear thrice on my mother’s grave that I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol in two years. And then swear it again on my one remaining hand and the holy Bible. Then make a blood sacrifice to the gods, give up my firstborn son, all that jazz. But yes. He did actually give me this information. Eventually.”

Blake can’t stop laughing.

“He cares about you a lot,” Yang chuckles. “Really a one-in-a-million type of guy.”

“I know.” Blake nods, recovering her composure. “I’d be nowhere without him. But I’m sorry he put you to all that trouble.”

“Not at all. I’d do it too if the roles were reversed. Wasn’t really digging the firstborn son, anyway.” Yang sips her tea and her shoulders relax visibly.

“So it’s really been two years?” Blake asks after a moment, hardly daring to believe.

“Yup.” And there’s pride in her voice. “A real toughie to shake, but I kicked it to the curb eventually. So, I mean. Here I am. I felt like I should, you know, keep you in the loop. Since it, uh. It ended so weirdly.”

“Yeah,” Blake breathes. “Weirdly.”

Yang looks at her, and Blake feels like a teenager seconds away from her first kiss. Or her first airplane flight alone. Yang looks at her and Blake forgets the English language.

“So, um,” Yang starts, uncharacteristically awkward. “You seeing anyone right now?”

“Not right now,” Blake whispers.

She cracks a lopsided grin. “Then forgive me if I’m overstepping my boundaries, but can I take you out sometime?”

Blake can literally feel her soul leave her body. She laughs and sobs at the same time and feels everything vividly, suddenly, irreversibly. “Get over here, idiot,” she blubbers, and Yang obeys and Blake is enveloped in gold. The kiss is soft, like chamomile. Sweet, like hope. Salty, like tears.

“I missed you,” Yang murmurs into her ear.

Blake buries her hands in Yang’s curls and her face in the crook of her neck, and whispers, “I missed you too.”

* * *

It’s Friday night, and Blake steps into Beacon Nightclub for the first time in nearly five years. The same wooden bar and the same scruffy bartender command the room. It’s a little more crowded than she remembers, and she becomes vividly conscious of being thirty when she observes the writhing coteries of freshly-legalized dancers. Blake skirts the edge of the dance floor and claims a stool at the bar.

The music is unfamiliar and thunderous. Blake sits. She sits and waits. She sits and waits and feels as though she’s travelled back in time, the same feeling you get when you enter your childhood bedroom after a long time away. Blake sits, face to the door, and waits for the sun to rise.

Eventually it does, and it rises into the room and fills it with a luminescent glow. It travels past clusters of oblivious dancers and pairs of blind lovers and pockets of old shadow. It glides along the wall and up the bar and onto the stool next to Blake’s.

Everything starts in a bar.

“Hello,” Blake greets the sun, and around them everything whirs and stops, like a clock rewinding.

Yang grins wider than the sky. “Can I buy you a soda?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thas all bitches! Now back to the pain of volume 8. I didn't edit this piece very thoroughly, so I'm sorry if any stupid errors disrupted the flow. Let me know if anything is horrendously wrong. And remember to make the yuletide gay - as in homosexual. >:D


End file.
